


This Time

by DoubleL27



Series: Where My Love Grows and Other Stories [3]
Category: Schitt's Creek
Genre: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Baseball, M/M, Pre-Canon, Tumblr: rosebuddwrites, on the road
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-02-10
Updated: 2020-02-10
Packaged: 2021-02-27 19:20:14
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,470
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22640920
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/DoubleL27/pseuds/DoubleL27
Summary: “Hi,” tumbles from his lips, breathy and needy and not at all as cool as he intended.Just shy of three weeks is too soon to have your heart beat this hard in your chest for a man you barely know. Trouble is, Patrick Brewer, center fielder for the Toronto Blue Jays, doesn’t feel like a stranger.
Relationships: Patrick Brewer/David Rose
Series: Where My Love Grows and Other Stories [3]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1624537
Comments: 22
Kudos: 118





	This Time

**Author's Note:**

> For Rosebudd Writes: 3. On the Road
> 
> This is part of a larger AU I'm toying with expanding. The previous fic in the Rosebudd Write prompts [A Name](https://archiveofourown.org/works/22594534) is set approximately six years previous to this fic. 
> 
> Thanks to Rhetorical Questions for the beta and the encouragement. I appreciate everything.
> 
> The title of this fic is from the Tracy Chapman song of the same name _This Time._

The sketch pad slides from his lap clatters to the floor, as the ringing phone interrupted the quiet, and David pounced on it, despite telling himself to play it cool, just this once. He shouldn’t be this excited, standing in the middle of his Soho loft on a Friday because someone has chosen to call him for the fifth day in a row. What are phone calls anyways, really? David thinks as the moniker Patrick Sportsball flashes across his screen. 

Still, he answers before the third ring. 

“Hi,” tumbles from his lips, breathy and needy and not at all as cool as he intended.

Just shy of three weeks is too soon to have your heart beat this hard in your chest for a man you barely know. Trouble is, Patrick Brewer, center fielder for the Toronto Blue Jays, doesn’t feel like a stranger. 

“Hey, David. I know it’s late. I hope I didn’t wake you. I just wanted—”

“I was up doing—” David looks at the sketch pad, where he most certainly hadn’t been drawing anything resembling the stitching on a baseball, or the shell of an ear, or the spread of waffles delivered on a Wednesday morning after he’d been left with a kiss instead of a romp in his bed. “Stuff. How was your performance tonight?”

“We lost.” Patrick sighs on the other end, heavy and long and David wants to crawl through the phone to give him a hug. “Bad. I’m actually kind of glad you don’t pay attention to sports. I’d be really embarrassed.”

“You’ll get them next time, champ,” David responds, a parroting of his father’s own words every time David slunked off the field from his parent-induced torture. “Wait, is there a next time? Do you just perform with the other company once, or do you do it a lot?”

“Thanks, David,” Patrick laughs, and even through the cell phone, there’s something about the sound of his name on Patrick’s tongue. “Tomorrow. We’ll try again tomorrow. Hey, uh, so in two days we’re going to be up in Boston, and I thought you might want to come up.”

It’s bad enough he’d run up to Toronto on ‘family business’ that didn’t exist, to see Patrick just this weekend because Patrick had casually mentioned having Monday off. He wants to say yes, but then his answer to  _ jump  _ has always been _ how high _ . David paces away from the windows and his own reflection and curls in his favorite chair trying not to see all the ways he breaks with every crash landing. “You don’t want a—um—to do—or see... people, like in Boston.”

“David Rose, have you seen the men in Boston? Basketball shorts with socks and Adidas slides or a button down that is wrong by two sizes in either direction.”

David glances down at the charcoal sketches that make up the insanity of the last two weeks. “They have been nominated the worst dressed city multiple years running.”

“So, why would I want to see any of them when I could see you?”

Fuck. That slips through him and curls inside his stomach, settling in, because from anyone else, that would sound like a tired line, but from Patrick it sounds like the truth. It’s so fucking dangerous. “Won’t you be working?”

Following Anderson Cooper on assignment to Johannesburg in the aftermath Nelson Mandela’s death had meant a lot of lonely time on the beach and playing second fiddle to what was, of course, a  _ very important _ news story. Being broken up with while trapped for hours in a parasail ride with him at the end of it was just the fucking cherry on the sad black forest gateau. He had promised himself no more tagging along on work trips for people with pretty smiles. 

“They’re evening games. I have some time before I have to report to the field. I’m sure we could find something to do. I hear they even have  _ museums _ .” Patrick said the last word like it was a dirty word, whispering it. 

David paces to the floor-to-ceiling windows that give beautiful views of the city he’s loved since he was five and his mom held his hand crossing the street amidst the sparkling lights of Broadway. His face reflects back in the glass and David glances down at his feet rather than see the expression on his face. That he’s even considering morning adventures in Boston is a sign of how far wrapped up in Patrick he’s already become. “I live in New York; why would I need Boston? Isabella’s is the only museum worth my time there.”

“Isabella’s?”

“The Isabella Stewart Gardner museum. It was her house, now it’s a museum. It was a museum when she lived in it, it was her own museum but she left strict instructions for what she wanted when she died.” David crings at his own rambling and tries to save it with, “It's kinda a big deal.”

“Look at that,” Patrick says, and David’s not sure what he’s supposed to be looking at until Patrick continues. “It’s less than six blocks from the field.”

“Is it?” David asks, tears prickling because this man who referred to a Kenneth Lantoc painting as finger paint on a discarded dress, just googled the museum for him. Although, considering that Patrick affectionately calls Kenneth Lantoc, _ Ken, _ and has inside jokes with the artist and is the kind of guy that shows up to ex-boyfriend’s gallery showings, David shouldn't be surprised.

“So, will you come up to Boston? It’s an hour flight or you could take the Acela. If you want, I can get you tickets. You can stay—”

“I can get my own tickets,” David blurts out, fast. His hand clenches tightly around the phone and he can hear Patrick suck in a breath. His heartbeat speeds up and he screws his eyes shut tight. “I just— you don’t have to, like, do that for me because I-I can get it.”

“Did it ever occur to you that I want to do things for you?” David can hear the unsaid words, that no one else does these things for David. They expect him to pay his own way, or to pay for both.  _ You’re too nice _ and  _ The fall is already too high _ float in David’s brain. “You know, David, this isn’t something I do all that often.”

“Of course it’s not; you’re in the closet,” David blurts, the words falling hot and furious from his lips. 

He curls further into himself in the chair, knees up to his forehead, shaking slightly. He shouldn’t have said it. He shouldn’t have spent the last four days looking up every bit of information on Patrick Brewer, professional athlete, he could get his hands on. David should know better than to look on TMZ and Star Magazine and every other gossip rag once he’d exhausted the professional outlets, and the speculation about the redheaded woman that shows up on his arm to various events. 

David hasn’t been able to exorcise the  **Celebrities: They’re Just Like Us** segment that both he and Patrick were featured in, candid shots set on either side of the layout, their heads swiveled as if they’re looking at each other across the glossy page. It’s a year old and while David’s collected every bit of media he’s been featured in, he never noticed the man on the other side of the page. It feels like fate and a curse all at once. 

But then what is David good at besides breaking things he never had in the first place?

“Okay, David.”

All the things he should say don’t come. Instead, David’s stomach flips miserably inside his body and he’s sure if he opens his mouth he’ll be sick. 

“Goodnight.”

The phone disconnects while David still has his pressed to his ear. The silence rings as heavy tears slide past his closed eyelids and leave circles on his pants. Time contracts and swells until David doesn’t know if he’s been in the chair for seconds or hours. He stretches his sore limbs and stands, not glancing out to his city. 

With leaden feet, David forces himself into the bathroom to complete his skin-care regimen before falling into his bed and sleep. David works to force the things he’s said and done out of his mind. It’s better this way. It’s better to not follow his attraction to its inevitable end. 

When he wakes, chasing dreams of a warm laugh and teasing eyes, there’s a notification on his phone. 

_ Just in case you change your mind. I figured The W was your speed. _

_ P _

Underneath are the links to an Acela ticket,  _ first class _ , and a reservation at the W hotel for Downtown Boston, just waiting if David wants to take them.


End file.
